Reviews by TubaManJack:

More User Reviews:

Pours a nice red color with a pinkish colred sprtizy looking head,nice tart raspberry aroma with some odd butteriness in there as well but not a bad thing.Wow some complexities to this fruit ale there is the fresh tart raspberry flavors but the firm dry malt backbone stands up well to the raspberry flavor and there is some hop bittering dryness in the finish making this a real enjoyable brew.I bought this for my wife and I drank it for her and really enjoyed this will be great in the summer heat. (501 characters)

Pours clear brownish-red with a small white head. Based on the appearance there's no surprise that raspberries are involved.

The aroma on this one is going to be especially subjective. The signature Great Divide piney/woodsy hop profile is present, which I don't really look for in a fruit beer, even though I love hops.

The taste is an odd balance of the aforementioned hops and a big burst of raspberry mid-palate. I just don't know about this one, raspberries and hops? So it's not going to be overly sweet and there's not a whole lot going on other than that. Interesting, won't be buying anymore. (603 characters)

The deepest, darkest, lush-est red hue with a ring of very white bubbles around the top.

The raspberries are definitely present in the scent, except with this beer, it is not an overly sweet smell. It is deeper and richer and more complex. Makes you want to dive right in.

Amazing taste. The best way I can describe it is like Lindeman's Framboise lambic, without any sweetness. Just a deep, rich flavor where the black raspberries are a standout. The maltiness follows close behind and helps round out the fruit. Great aftertaste as well.

The mouthfeel is very supportive of the taste and holds up well.

This is my first Great Divide beer. Very, very impressive, and now I can't wait to try the other 2 singles I have from the brewery. (812 characters)

1/2 beer, 1/2 a-fizzing! I have to wait for this supercarbonater to rest nearly a full minute before I can turn up the bottle and empty its contents. The liquid came out with a cherry red tinge but in its Carolina Brewery pint glass container, it looks much like a highly carbonated (muddy) brown. Even as I add the last eighth, the fizz again creeps back to bulge out of the glass.

It's difficult to smell anything past the thick layer of foam that remains. It's sad that raspberry doesn't permeate my olfactory lobe. The smell is hardly distinctive, and that's a problem for a fruit beer.

The taste is overwhelmingly malty. I'm thinking something might be wrong with this one. It tastes stale. Bottled the third week in April (though I can't specify the year), I'm thinking this beer might just suck. I love fruit beers (I thought), and this one just doesn't do them justice. The label calls it "a beer lover's fruit beer." Quite frankly, I'm appalled. I notice further from the label it's fermented with red and BLACK raspberries. Without knowing anything about the intricacies of fruits, I'm thinking that this beer is more black raspberries...and that's not a good thing. It's overly malted and/or black raspberried out--hardly worth sipping.

Mouthfeel, like everything else, is disappointing. What do you do when you struggle to detect fruit in a fruit beer? It's not as if it's overwhelmed by alcohol like a Fort; instead, it's like a macrobrewed fruit fiasco. A beer trying to be something...and failing.

I typically love to throw in fruit beers at the end of tastings to provide something sweet for the palate. This one, unfortunately, is not worth existing. I really think Great Divide should rid this from its repertoire. (1,736 characters)

Presentation: 12 oz brown long neck, on the label it states that Wild Raspberry Ale uses hundreds of pound of red and black raspberries. "Month and week bottled" notch on the side for freshness.

Appearance: Reddish almost burgundy in color, good head retention that leaves a thin yet sturdy lace behind.

Smell: Semi tart raspberry nose, clean aroma.

Taste: Smooth mouth feel with a thin malt palate, light tart raspberry flavour hits middle to end. Malt stays thin as well as the hop bitterness but this helps the fruit to shine. Drying grain and tart raspberry finish off the brew.

Pours a clear, purple red body with a small ivory/pink head that falls quickly into patchy lace. Aroma features fresh raspberries and caramel malt. Light bodied and medium carbonation comprise the mouthfeel, along with a very tart berry twang. Taste features more raspberry, but it never becomes sweet or syrupy. Plenty of roasted caramel malt woven around the raspberry flavor. No real hops presence, but none is really necessary for this fruit ale's success.
Overall, a nice looking and nice drinking fruit ale. I'm just getting acquainted with Great Divide's brews, and find their ales and stouts to be extremely well crafted and tasty, so far. (649 characters)

Drinkability: An average fruit beer that is more beer than fruit. The beer part taste like a pale ale/adnjunct beer with slight raspberries. I was surprised by the bitterness. That being said, for the price one is enough. (477 characters)

The beer pours a medium brick red color with a white head. The aroma is caramel malt with a bunch of semi-sweet raspberry notes. The flavor is raspberry with some bready malt and a some grassy hops. The beer is not as sweet as expected and there is a little bit of dryness. Medium mouthfeel and medium carbonation. Decent, but there are much better fruit beers out there. (371 characters)

Wild Raspberry Ale is a dark ruby beer with a quickly dissolving head that leaves just a little layer of pink bubbles. The aroma is pure unadulterated fresh raspberries. It's an intoxicating aroma that is really well retained in the bowl of the snifter I'm drinking from.

The taste though is mostly of malt, and the raspberry flavor is definitely lacking and is really only hinted at by the nose. The tartness of the berries is lacking in this beer, which would surely provide balance in a beer that is very low in bitterness, but with a noticeable malt body. I think that with the right amount of acidity, the fruit would really be accentuated and the beer taste considerably better.

As such this beer is fairly drinkable, but it's mostly just really "smellable" (780 characters)

Red and light brown appearance, not much of a head on this, carbonation seemed quite muted. A little bit of raspberry aroma, not much to write home about here.

Taste, not overly sweet, always the bane of my existence when sampling fruit beers. Has enough hop presence to qualify as a 'beer' for the uninitiated. The biggest disappointment is the lack of what can be perceived as raspberry. Really just has a candied fruit thing going, not really specific to raspberry. Although I've heard if you want raspberry flavor, you actually need to add some other fruit that isn't raspberry, but I dunno.

Decent for summer, its got a very light malt component, more for the girlfriend, my fruit stuff has to be pretty close to top notch, and this is just average in my book. (769 characters)

Slightly maroon shade to a gold color, clear in appearance. Middling head, rises to about 1/4 of an inch, lasts about a minute. Small dots are practically all the lace there is. Mildly berry aroma, slightly piquant, but not a lot to identify it as raspberry per se. Body is slight, mouthfeel is a little too highly carbonated for me. Flavor does evoke raspberry, a little too sweet overall but not a mess of sugary syrup either. Slightly bready counterpart, no noticeable hop intrusion. Slightly astringent finish but lacking some real fruit authenticity in the way of skins etc. Certainly better than examples like Leinenkugel's Berry Weiss, but a bit light, over carbonated and maybe needing more sense of real raspberry in the early set up. (743 characters)